Special Operations

Complacency Kills: Lessons from a Delta Force breacher

“THERE’S A FREAKIN’ FENCE OUT THERE. A CHAIN-LINK FENCE!” came the holler from our man in the doorway of the building we were in. That fence was blocking our route to a field just outside, to where our exfiltration help was already inbound. I already knew what was coming next as the assault team leader looked at me. I nodded and started for the door when he called out, “Geo, cut it!” I was carrying what we called a Python Charge or Fence-Cutter. It was really just a great general-purpose explosive charge, powerful as hell, and was a shaped charge, meaning it was a wicked cutting charge that focused all of its burn energy in a concentrated direction. It could cut through all kinds of metal and was perfect for blasting through a chain-link fence. In fact, the measurements of the charge were approximately eight feet long—specifically designed with a fence in mind.

The Python was a linear-shaped charge (LSC) embedded in a long foam strip with a heavy rubber band on top and a wire hook on the bottom. I carried it on my kit, rolled up into a flat disk. I dashed outside with a man covering me as I worked. I whipped the Python to unroll it. I hooked the rubber retainer over the top wires of the fence, and pulling it taught, I hooked the wire hook into a loop low on the fence.

At that moment I thought I heard Major Horton from “Band of Brothers” call out to me, “WHAT IS THE GODDAMNED PROBLEM, MR. SOBEL?”

To which I would reply, “A FENCE, SIR… A… A CHAIN-LINK FENCE!

Major Horton: “AWW, THAT DOG JUST AIN’T GONNA HUNT!”

Different strengths of linear-shaped charge set in flexible foam molds.

The tension of the rubber band helped greatly to slap the Python up against the fence. I did a final check to make sure the Python was facing the right way, because that would certainly suck when I fired it from a few feet away if it were facing me rather than the fence. I grabbed the firing system, an M-60 Fuse Igniter attached to a Nonel shock tube detonator.

M-60 fuse igniters: Just pull the ring outward to fire.

Three seconds was all the delay I had programmed into the firing system. I popped the M-60, announced “BURNING!,” took one large step behind the python, and squatted with my back to the charge and fingers in my ears like a little kid lighting a Black Cat firecracker. I could hear the thump thump thump of Black Hawk helicopter blades approaching when the Python let off an ear-splitting CRACK and a wicked-rude shockwave that pushed me forward onto my hands.

Positive that the sneaky rat bastard Mike Tyson had snaked up and clocked me a good one, I twisted back and gave a gander at the fence. What fence? It was blown open from north to south. You could have driven a Ford Fusion through it without scratching the paint…not that it would have been a big deal with a Ford Fusion. I mean come on. OK, a Lamborghini, then. You could have driven a Lamborghini untouched through the hole the Python left in that fence!

I crouched by the opening, letting my team pass through to the exfil chopper. Each man gave me a “good job” slap to the shoulder as they ran by. A litter team jogged by with the asshat terrorist we had come to remove from leadership. He was strapped down tight, all beat the hell up, and looking totally disenchanted with his current state of affairs. Plus, he had crapped his pants. Every person we ever nabbed crapped their pants. Even general officers. They all crapped their pants.

“Last man!” I was told by the last assaulter to run by. My turn. I raced off to take a seat on the helo. I thanked the creator that we had a decently short flight, because even in a banshee-howling Black Hawk with both the doors removed, I could still smell that clown’s shit pants from where he lay strapped to the litter. I had to grin.

That was a good time. Everything went well—very well. To flip that coin, though, we all know that some of our best-laid plans may take a southern excursion of their own at times. Such was the case with Moses Bentley and the Bentley Blaster (BB) charge he had created on his own.

The BB charge was, in my opinion, more of what we called a “trash shot.” That is, it was just a wad of all of the explosive tailings, odds and ends, left over from making explosive charges. Pieces that wouldn’t really fit into another charge. We would typically take the trash shots downrange and blow them up once a month. I have used the term trash shot to describe a good number of people in my day, too. Perhaps some have used it to describe me?

The next mission called for explosive entry through an exterior door. Think of the front door to your house. It is probably the most no-nonsense, strongest door in your house. All interior doors are likely much lighter and weaker. Moses was the breacher for this target. He was hell-bent on using his BB charge, and use it he did.

We two, Moses and I, crept to the front door while the rest of the team stacked up just around the near corner. I had Moses’ back while he worked, just like my mate had my back at the Python. Moses fired the charge but did an odd thing: Rather than back away from the charge, he turned around quickly and ran around the corner.

The delay on the firing system was five seconds. I cleared the corner with the team as the charge detonated. MY GOD…it was so loud! I thought. I was stunned and flipped around 180 degrees. My ears rang like the Notre Dame Cathedral, and I wasn’t completely clear what I was even doing or even where I was.

An assault team in a stack just around the nearest corner from the blast of the breach point.

As colors slowly returned to my sight I could see now that the front door had not blown up. We had blown up. When Moses turned after firing the charge, his holstered M1911 had hooked the charge, stripping it off the door, dragged it back to the assault team stack, and…BOOOOM!

Moses was upside down, with his body slumped against the wall and his head anchored into the ground, neck bent at an impossible angle. You simply could never have manually placed a human in such a bizarre and morbid pose. Well, maybe if you were Jeffrey Dahmer.

The man behind Moses lay face down with his uniform trousers completely shredded, his bare legs bleeding from a hundred tiny holes. He was getting up slowly. I ran to him and grabbed his shoulder. He looked up at me with a horrified expression.

“Cos!” I said his name. His face changed completely and he grinned and shook his head a bit, exclaiming, “Whew…I’d hate to see what that door looks like now. WHEW!”

Moses had just come-to from his upside-down unconscious state and immediately got into a pissing match with our team leader, Daddy-Mac. “Well, Mos is OK. That’s what he normally does: argue!” Mos would be fine, but he was certainly NOT fine. He was badly burned, with black and red on his pelvis and legs. Some flesh was blown away and he had holes in both legs. His sidearm was destroyed and likely saved his life.

I could see his junk—which was completely disgusting—where his kit and clothes were blown away, and I was vicariously glad for him that he was still intact. He was out of action for weeks but came in occasionally to argue, because that’s what Mos did: argue.

Moses Bentley’s slightly damaged assault uniform.

An in-house investigation performed by The Unit’s master breacher gigged Mos for two faults: The first was the unauthorized use of a non-standard explosive charge, the Bentley Blaster; the second was his failure to follow egress procedure after firing the charge. Remember, he turned 180 degrees and hooked the charge with his pistol. If he had just backed away from the charge once he’d fired it, none of the carnage would have occurred.

The Unit could have let him go for that but didn’t. I’m thankful for that. Mos took his medicine from the master breacher like a man, but only after one hell of a long, drawn-out argument with the guy. Because that’s just what Master Sergeant Moses Bentley did. He argued.

By almighty God and with honor,
Geo sends

From a cartoon book maintained by the author depicting various events in a humorous manner. Depicted here is Moses Bentley himself acting as the explosive door charge.

Ongoing selection in Delta: The first thing you know

(Dedicated to Recon6)

Riiiingggg… riiiingggg… riiiingggg… (this is a sound that phones made in the day, back before we could we could select Poison by Bell Biv Devoe as a ring tone)

Jesus H. Christ, it’s only 0230… and oh-no, there can be only one good reason my home phone is ringing at this hour. I fumbled the phone receiver to my ear upside down.

“Hello, this is geo”

Nothing. I felt the phone cord on top, flipped the receiver around and tried again.

“Hello, this is geo”

“Master Sergeant Hand, what’s the first thing you know?” quizzed the remote voice.

Oh geez… well phuk me runnin’ in the rain in Rio, I thought as I was suddenly wide awake.

“Ol’ Jed’s a millionaire” I replied weakly. And without another word the connection terminated. Time to make the donuts, me thought to meself, and I left the bedroom to collect my go-to-work kit: a heavy nylon day-and-half-pack, a kit bag presumptuously designed, when packed thoughtfully, to maintain you operationally for some 36 hours.

Mine was black and heavy-duty with all sorts of modifications on it. It was hardly more than just a pile of zippers and velcro. In it no two items were ever in contact; every item was isolated in its own compartment. Ridiculous? Yes, absolutely. But once oriented in my mind, I could feel my way through it in the dark to any single item.

I envisioned my bag configured like a RAM board on a computer, with every byte of memory in its own cell, waiting to be called out by motherboard. Once used and no longer needed, the byte was sent back on its residence address line to stand by in its cell until further needed.

A song played in my head, one that would terminate and stay resident in my brain for an agonizing most of the day:

Come and listen to a story ‘bout a man named Jed
Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
When up from the ground came a bubblin’ crude
(Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea)

The phone exchange had been a bonafide used in the day to notify an individual to report immediately to the Staff Duty dest for further instructions. It was any fool’s guess what the reason could be. I could find myself peeling potatoes in the mess hall kitchen or have a seat on the next Space Shuttle. The only guarantee is that it would be a mystery… until it was completely over.

Well the first thing you know ol’ Jed’s a millionaire
The kin folks said: “Jed, move away from there”
They said: “Californi is the place you oughta be”
So he loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverly
(Hills that is, swimmin’ pools, movie stars)

I cruised the back forest roads toward the Unit. I was in no hurry. The stage was completely black, save that which my high beams compromised. I just wanted to take my time to see absolutely nothing. But what are the chances my next instructions include catching a flight out-of-state, or even out of the country? Knowing the Unit, they would barely give me enough time to catch the flight. Suddenly I was very much in a hurry, as my gas pedal sank to the floor.

At the Unit, I parked in the usual squadron designated area, but in the best spot closest to the building, since there was nobody there. I turned to give the cars another visual, to see who else’s car might be parked there, and somehow involved in this same operation.

Excluding the cars whose owners I already knew were TDY, I recognized Paul’s car was already there. Hmmm, I wonder where Paul is heading this morning. I would indeed run into Paul under the most unanticipated circumstances.

I fast-paced it down the long spine of the building to the Staff Duty office, all the while wondering what I would be doing next: herding goats in Scotland, screaming out bids on Wall street, teaching spelling to a class of first graders, driving a phony UPS truck, lighting candles at the Vatican?

My answers made me grin because they reminded me of one of those silly tests they give you that is supposed to gauge what type personality you have. I think they are officially titled the “Utter Waste of Time Battery” by institutes of higher learning:

Which would you MOST like to do (circle one)
1. Host a Tupperware party
2. Try to fit a cue ball in your mouth
3. Be in a play about Moses
4. Smash bottles against a school building

Which one would you LEAST like to do (circle one)
1. Be cross gendered and torn by the dilemma that you want to use the mens’ room but know for
a fact that the womens’ rooms will be cleaner
2. Take a pottery class with estranged housewives
3. Pass out towels at a gay bath house
4. Smash bottles against a school building

I always just answered ‘B’ to every question, because it’s not like those tests were ever going to mean anything to anyone ever. I just wrote, “I’m an ass” under my name and turned them in… because I’m an ass. I accept that and freely admit it. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and type it out 500 times just to remind myself that I am not guilty of any pretense.

“Good morning geo” my fellow A squadron brother greeted shyly, playing the game.

“Top o the marnin’ to yeh laddie Patrick!” I returned Gaelic-ly, but thoroughly devoid of any enthusiasm.

Patrick dialed a five-digit number, so I knew he was calling inside the building.
“Principal has arrived,” Pat said over the phone and hung up.

So as to avoid an awkward stare down, I turned my back and pretended to read the commanders policies on issues that mattered to nobody hanging on the billboard in the hall, as I whistled the tune to the Beverly Hillbillies softly. The tune drew eventual cackles of laughter from Patrick and his runner.

“Hey geo” came the voice of our Operations Officer rounding the corner from the spine into the Staff Duty office. He handed me a large envelope with his left hand and extended his right for a hardy handshake of good luck. Without another word he broke gaze and marched out, leaving me to finish the final chorus of Beverly Hillbillies before I bolted back down the spine to my team room.

In the team room, I ripped open the envelope and sorted through the various papers until I found it… an airline ticket. All I wanted to know was what time the flight was. There it was. I had plenty of time. I sat now and sorted through the papers in order, taking in all instructions carefully. I was going to Seattle.

Reading through my instructions, I had time and was able to adjust my kit to accommodate the small piece of the mission as I thought I understood it. Well, this was just a transport leg. This tells me nothing really, except that it’s going to rain on me. I mean, I don’t know if this is a real-world mission that is going to take me overseas for some heinous act of insanity, or if I will be required to smash bottles against a school building.

Preferring the latter, I begrudgingly stuffed a light rain parka in my day bag. I raced through a mental inventory of everything I had in my bag, for fear that I might accidentally leave something in there that would trip the TSA inspectors. I mean, they always raised a brow at my menacing-looking kit and ran it through twice for X-rays… I just didn’t want anything that might get the Bomb Squad alerted, and my day bag blown in place.

Say… this mission sounds like a job for ‘The Shirt’! The Shirt was an ordinary shirt hanging in my locker that had $20.00 bills meticulously folded and sewn into the seams. Only me and my team bro Sam Foster knew about the shirt, and we vowed that whoever got called out on such a mission would be welcome to take the shirt. The missing shirt would also be a way that we communicated to each other that one of us was gone, and why.

The shirt was my first go at failsafe-ing a mystery mission call out. A second attempt, and after much thought, I took to taking several $100.00 bills, painstakingly folding them lengthwise until they gave the appearance of needles. I sewed those into the much narrower seams of my day-and-a-half bag.

If that were not enough, I awoke one night with a sudden epiphany. Yes, yes of course… a child could understand it, a child could! In my agonizing over the best way to failsafe a mystery deployment, I pieced together bits of leaked scenarios and rumors from guys who had been on them. In this particular night, in my sleep, it dawned on me that everything could be taken from me… everything that is, except my SHOES!

You see, the single common denominator in every leaked story and rumor was the fact that you had to walk constantly every day for many miles. For that reason I felt very strongly that they could not possibly take my shoes away! I would soon enough find out that I hit that nail right smack on its steel head.

The next day I pulled threads from the tongues of my hiking shoes, the ones I wore only to and from work, ones that I would be certain to take with me on such a mission. With the threads carefully pulled, I parted the material of the tongues and inserted $100.00 bills in each, ensuring I restitched the threads back in the holes they came from. They looked a flawless product.

Cruising easy to the city airport I wiggled my toes in my most valuable hiking shoes, and gave myself a reassuring nod in my rearview mirror. “High adventure” said I to anyone that would listen. “High adventure, be it potato peelings or Earth’s orbit, it invariably will be high adventure.”

geo sends

Photos courtesy of MeTV.com, SpilnoTV.com, and Wired.com

Former Delta Force operator: Why the 1911 is still my favorite sidearm

I’m a gunslinger by background, or at least I fancy myself the sort. I still wear my pistols low these days, just not quite as low as in the day. l live, nonetheless, today as I have always lived—by the sword. And you know what living by the sword means. That’s right, it means being unable to sleep at night because of the loud, late parties the sword is always throwing.

Why I like the 1911 for taking care of business

Now, in the day, we often jokingly referred to any 9mm pistol as a ‘sub-caliber device’, we pompous barbarians, the gunslingers of Delta Force. Our primary choice for a secondary (backup) firearm was the M-1911 .45 caliber blazer, legacy of the venerable John Moses Browning.

Never in modern history of U.S. ordnance have weapons remained in DOD arsenals for so many consecutive years without major modification or attempt to compromise the weapon’s intended ballistic capabilities as those introduced by John M. Browning.

I am put in mind of world-renowned small-arms expert Larry Allen Vickers of Vicker’s Tactical as he admonished a class he was giving on the operation and maintenance of the revered M2HB heavy machine gun:

Men, if John Moses Browning were to walk through this door right now…well, first of all we’d shit ourselves because Browning has been dead for over a hundred years…but then he’d say ‘do you men have and clue at all what you are doing?’”

There was no option to train with another caliber of pistol in the Delta training course for new operators; this was standard issue and would be mastered to successfully pass the five-month course. Mind you, the 1911s in the unit are not issued as they are unpacked from depot; they are meticulously modified by The Unit’s armorers to recognized match-grade standards:

Sights of choice, typically Low-Light BoMar or comparable class
Trigger pull eased to two pounds
Flared magazine well for faster magazine changes
Ambidextrous thumb safety, slide lock, mag release
Extended slide lock and mag release to aid in speed of reloads as felt through combat contact gloves
Aggressive checkering in key locations to enhance purchase
Pistol grips of choice to enhance purchase
Modified buffer
Modified feed ramp

Yes, the M-1911 is the pistol of choice in Delta, where there is never any guilt of pretense for its killing/stopping power. Yea though it be a beast to control, the pay-forward of the gat is rewarding.

The effects of the .45 jacketed metal slug can be likened to one of two basic classes of explosives, that is a low explosive versus a high explosive (takes a deep breath as he attempts to explain it without losing his audience):

High explosives such as C4 ‘plastic explosive’ expand (explode) at a very high rate of 26,000 feet per second (FPS). It burns fast and hot and has tremendous cutting potential against metal and the like. I compare it to the M4 assault rifle’s cartridge that sails along at over 3,000 FPS. It is supersonic, tends to penetrate very easily, and when passing through the human body, renders a high-velocity rifle cartridge wound.

The much lower velocity .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (ACP) cartridge, at 825 FPS, is well under the realm of supersonic, doesn’t impart the same acute cutting properties, but delivers devastating knockdown power. This round can be compared to the low expanding velocity of dynamite, TNT, and ammonium nitrate. These create more of a pushing, fracturing force that is ideal for moving large volumes of earth—such as in mining operations.

How ‘slow’ does the ACP round travel? I can tell you that, in my experience, the round moves slow enough to see with the naked eye.

“Bull crap!” you bellow out at my reckless and ingenuous suggestion.

I stand before you today a man solemn and grim in my claims. You can, in fact, under many conditions, see the .45 ACP fly through the air from behind the gun. Even from a flanking observation point, you can glimpse the shiny copper jacket as it crosses a dark background. From behind the pistol, a well-seasoned shooter can actually see the bullet arc up slightly and slap the paper of the target downrange.

An even more seasoned shooter (I have never seen this) can detect tiny specks of brass where they explode out of the chamber when the weapon cycles its reload phase. I felt inadequate when my brother, Samuel Booth Foster, explained how he was aware of the ephemeral specks of brass. But that comes from a brother who could watch a spinning ceiling fan and fix his gaze on a single turning blade.

“Incredible that you can do that, Sam!”

“Weak genetics that you can’t do it, George.”

“I love you too, Sam.”

Over my years in Delta, I maintained a cartoon book, a book of quotable quotations, and a Delta sayings and ‘non-sayings’ book. The lattermost book was made up of two parts filled with things you never hear in Delta, and then things you only hear in Delta. Those include the following:

Things you only hear in Delta

“Hey, has anyone seen our machine gun lately?”

“Well, I don’t have my parachute altimeter…I guess that’s the same thing as having turned it in.”

“Ft. Bragg is getting an allocation of nine of the new Javelin anti-tank rockets. Our cut is…nine.”

“The post military police (MP) were bitching that we were using up way too much of Ft. Bragg’s allocation of .45 ACP. The MPs now carry Berettas.”

“We’re going to work through lunch and dinner so we can get off early tonight (and then never actually get off early or get lunch/dinner).”

Things you never hear in Delta

“We’re using blanks and practice grenades on the objective tonight.”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant. You can have either the mash potatoes or corn; you can’t have two starches.”

“Cease fire!”

“Clothing issue facility rejected my canteen cup again. Still dirty somehow…”

“Fall in!”

“You need to get that mop trimmed, stand a little closer to your razor, and get that lid in travel lock, Mister!”

“Get your hands out of your pockets!”

“In cadence, EXERCISE one-two-three ONE one-two-three TWO…”

“Hey, my pistol doesn’t work.”

That last one—“my pistol doesn’t work”—yeah…what actually does that mean anyway? OK, so I’m just going to be an elitist ass and say that my gat was where it was at. I had the same two 1911s for my entire 10 years in the unit. Students graduating to squadrons carried all of their weapons and kit from training branch to squadron—there was no ‘training only’ pool of anything there. Everything was live, full caliber, no nonsense, and ready to go to war.

Author with first Special Forces Group (Airborne) during range fire in AK, with his M-1911

Reliability: The only malfunctions I experienced with either of my pistols were intentionally induced for the sake of practice. Every time I pulled the trigger, it went BANG, and a hole nearly a half inch in diameter opened up somewhere bad.

Durability: I once had my pistol come out of its holster and fall five stories onto concrete. It did NOT discharge on collision, though there was a round chambered (of course). I fired it for a week after, then decided I should get a technical inspection (TI) of my pistols, as I had never had one done. I mean when do these gats ever wear out? The inspection revealed a hairline stress crack in the lower, not associated with the five-story fall, and a sloppy ejector (not extractor) that was associated with the fall. My lower was swapped out with a Caspian or Kimber lower, the ejector (not extractor) was re-seated, and I was out on Pat McNamara-style blaze ops the same day.

Author left and Senior Engineer Sergeant Dave Royer on range fire with M-1911 in AK.

Accuracy: Don’t get me started. What can I really say, right? I mean a match-grade gat, match ammo…how many excuses are left for not hitting your target? Yes, typically we did our combat pistol training at 25 meters. But on occasion, such as when world champions Jerry Barnhart and Rob Leatham came to train us, they would have us move back to 50 meters and try some outside-the-box drills. We would eventually move back to 100 meters or more, watching the shiny bullet arc up slightly, then rudely spank the steel target plate.

It’s amazing how far away the ACP can still be accurate, how high above the head of the target you have to hold off, and how long the slow-moving ACP takes to get to its target. Just when you think you have missed, CLANG!

Satisfaction: Immeasurable. There is a peace of mind unmatched knowing that you have one of the most powerful handguns in the world for the last 100 years holstered at your side. One that you know can come out very fast, is sure to send rounds down range every time, and has unprecedented knockdown power.

I’m a gunslinging man, yes I am. I wear my pistols low these days, just not as low as in the day. That’s how I fancy myself.

Lest I die in jest, I remain,
Geo sends

(This piece is dedicated to Mr. Rob Garrett)

Delta Force’s James Nelson Sudderth – Conan the Barbarian

Prologue:There a two men who I credit, or blame, for bringing me to the Delta Force from my state of uncertainty and lack of self-confidence: James Nelson Sudderth and Matthew Loren Rierson. Both are departed. Both deliberately approached me and asked me to come to Delta Force.

First it was Matt who asked me ‘when I was coming’, coaxing the gears in my head to turn and engage. From that I felt a distinct lean forward that I merely nursed for about a year. Then came James, who TOLD me with a knife hand to my chest to come. That’s how James conveyed messages of all sort, with knife hand to chest. The lean forward became a jog ahead, and then a run. I ran right into the Delta Force, never looking back, no longer just Jenny on the block.

Forward:
I’m an SOF Combat Diver by trade, or at least I fancy myself one. I was assigned to the Combat Dive Academy as a Senior Instructor/Writer from 1989 to 1991. One of the courses we offered to the SOF community in the day was titled the Waterborne Infiltration Course (WIC). I attended the very first pilot course of WIC as a student. It was quickly and unaffectionately nicked: ’Ranger School on Water’.

WIC was six weeks of, grueling, finning, Zodiac-driving, Klepper kayak-paddling, over-the-horizon navigating, ass-whipping training on every tactical aspect of SOF waterborne operations, with the exception of underwater events! Underwater operations were a completely different animal, and required a specially select man to perform them.

special-forces-dive-team — Special Forces in the WIC course; long range navigation and infiltration with a Zodiac F-470 Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRC)

WIC only ran for several iterations, and then it was dropped from the Key West curriculum for ‘lack of support by the Special Forces Groups’. That is a polite way of saying guys didn’t want to come to the WIC because it was just plain TOO HARD!

I could go on about how much harder the pilot WIC I attended was, as it was executed to find out how much was too much for us mere mortals… but this essay is not about me; it is about a man that I only ever imagined I was as good as.

Helocast operations; Special Forces troops cast from the back of a CH-47 helicopter as it flies ~10 MPH, and ~10ft above the surface of the water.

Meet James Sudderth:
WIC students occupied the tarmac adjacent to the dive academy equipped with hoses and brushes, vigorously washing and rinsing salt water from Zodiac F-470 Combat Rubber Raiding Craft, and other personal and team equipment. These men had been dropped by CH-47 helos some 16 nautical miles from the shore of key west the night before.

At that distance you are ‘beyond the splash line’ or Over the Horizon (OTH); that is, you have traveled so far from shore that you can no longer see land due to the curvature of the Earth’s round service. With no visual reference, these men had to perform instrument approach back to shore using compass, and route calculations that they had done in prior mission planning, to defeat Mama Nature’s tides, waves, and ocean currents.

The men worked brilliantly on their post mission stand down. Some shirts off, some on, some in shorts, some combat fatigues, some sandals, mostly barefoot. I looked down at the bare foot of one senior student, who I recognized very early on as being an irresistible leader, and powerhouse participant in all aspects of the training. His foot had a big toe, a little toe, but was missing his middle toes; it looked like it was rendering a perpetual Vulcan salute—live long and prosper.

“Sergeant First Class…” I barked, and the student looked up at me: “Yes Sergeant?”

“You appear to be out of uniform, Sergeant.”

“How so, Sergeant?”

“Your foot…” I continued: “You are missing several of your digits; you are of course aware that you are required to report to training daily with ALL of your equipment?” I joked.

The student grin an obligatory grin, one that is frankly forced, but offered as a gesture of respect, though he was sick of hearing jokes about his missing toes. I was immediately regretted my pallid attempt at humor, but the damage was done. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinking of that one, dumbass!

Another Instructor who happened to be in earshot, Chuck “Chuckles” S., sidestepped and leaned in to say: “Hey, that Delta’s James Sudderth, lost his toes in a chopper crash rescuing Kurt Muse from Modelo Prison in Panama. If you want to go ahead and just open your mouth a little wider, I’ll shove your foot in for ya.”

Little Bird Helicopter — The MH-6 Little Bird helo wreckage that took James’s toes

Have you ever been walking along in public and suddenly tripped over your own feet, and tried to do that cool-guy recovery? You look back behind you at the imaginary thing that ‘made’ you trip, with a pissed-off and pensive glare? You do that not for yourself, rather for those that saw you, so they will understand that you actually had a Fred-Astaire-kind-of cool going on… but then some villain piece of unconscionable shit made you trip in front of all these nice people.

Well I didn’t do any of that. I kicked off my shoes and grabbed a hose and starting squirting down UDT Vests, paddles, and whatever.

“Hey, James… sorry that that last remark; sometimes it’s like my mouth is falling down the stairs.”

“Heh-heh… yeah, don’t worry about it.” And so it went.

Over the years it had been suggested to me time and again: “You should try out for Delta; you need to go to Delta…” Perhaps, but I wasn’t by far guilty of any pretense. I wasn’t fraught with typical excuses: “Well, I’ve got a bone in my leg, I just don’t want to live in Fayetteville, this trick knee of mine, allergy to sloped hills, my wife, my ankle, my toe… MY ASS!” I did not go, for my one lone survivor reason: I did not believe that I could make it.

At the end of every course at the academy, the students and instructors get together and treat themselves to an end-of-course party. Everyone migrates back to Sergeants’ and officers’ status, and just have a jolly ol’ time for a few hours over a cookout and brew-ha-has.

Invitation to try out for Delta Force Selection
“James Nelson Sudderth is headed my way with a beer in his hand, coming right at me so I’ll step aside. Da-fuq, he intentionally turned and is still coming right at me. There is going to be a collision if he does not alter his course! And with James, well, you can bet there are going to be some knife-hand pointing to the chest.

“Sergeant Hand I need to talk to you.” Just call me George, and sure.” James nudged me to walk about to the other side of the building where there was privacy.

“It’s that shit I said about his foot… aw man, I knew it!! He’s going to twist me like Chubby Checker!”

And so James began: “George, you need to try out for Delta. Now, listen to me…” and he wiped the beer from his mouth, walked a quick two steps away to set his beer down on the academy building’s front porch, and then closed back with me. I totally got it, he was distancing the beer from the conversations in a it’s-not-the-beer-talking gesture, demonstrating his attempt at honesty.

“I tried to follow the Unit’s published train up guide lines, and I am not capable of carrying the loads over the distances and times it indicates, James.”

“George forget about that paper; you really, you just have to go and try out.”

“How can I when I can’t pass the entry-level standards??”

“You can do it George, if you just go and try. Trust me, it is an-out-of body experience; your body won’t be able to do it, but your mind will.”

I was nodding my head and pursing my lips, and thinking about how I met Delta’s Matthew Rierson, with whom I attended the basic dive CDQC with years ago. “When are you coming over, George?” Matt matter of factly asked me, and expected and answer, but never got one.

Still nodding I finally: “I’m going to do it. But just one question…”

“Send it.” James challenged

“At the end of selection, do we really have to live lift a 200 pound caldron of red-hot coals with just our forearms branding them with a lion and a dragon?”

“James flash a genuine grin, and kept his face pointed toward me so I could keep seeing his grin as he retrieved his beer. “Yes, yes you do, mother fucker, but you WILL do it!”

We walked back about the building to join the brothers in the throes of rejoice for their accomplished six weeks of smoke on the water. James walked with his arm over my shoulder, like a big brother. James was three months younger than I was.

I trained for selection my fist time, grossly over doing it, and wrecked myself; I had to wave off West “BY GOD” Virginia for the time. I regrouped and refit, and trained my second time for selection, and by God I made it through the course my first time around, flaming cauldron, scary tattoos and all… ok, no Kwai Chang Caine test of manhood. But it was definitely time for me to leave the temple and hang my hat down the spine.

Geo sends

James Nelson Sudderth (far right) hunting drug cartel kingpins in South America

The time my Special Forces team accidentally burned down a Korean forest (Pt.2)

Note: This is part of a series. Read part one here.

Dawn cracks in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and 10,000 roosters crow. My auditory senses are awakened. I stare at the olive drab of the tent canvas above my cot. Visual acquisition and, wait for it…wait for it…ah, there it is—olfactory perforation by rotton cabbage, coupled with burning rubber and feces. Gooooood morning, ROK!

My Green Beret A-team is housed all together in a cramped, general-purpose medium tent, one each. Most of us are sitting up now in our cots; swaddled in poncho liners, we blink at each other by the dawn’s early light. By now the click-clack-click of jungle boots on wooden pallet sidewalks indicates that morning chow is afoot. The wafting of green eggs and ham from the land of the big PX confirms that chow is indeed on, Sam I am.

In the chow tent, our “team sergeant,” Buck, tells us that we will have an opportunity to conduct some live fire and demolitions training on one of the Korean range fire facilities. This would be a good day. Something to do besides watch massive formations of Korean soldiers performing synchronized Tae Kwon Do katas, or work out with the Fred Flintstone weight sets that were ubiquitous in the ROK military. They were large, #10 soup cans filled with concrete on each end of a five-foot pole, and served as curl bars. You could really feel the burn around repetition 900.

We loaded a few vehicles with weapons and other kit, drove to the field-expedient ammunition supply point (ASP), and loaded a respectable consignment of blow to take to the demolitions range. As we loaded ourselves for departure on the short drive to the range, it appeared I would not get away without giving one more singing performance of the Korean national folksong “Arirang” to the new group of soldiers my buddy Sgt. Park had herded up to hear me sing. Damn me for ever learning it in the first place. I had become a measure of novelty to the Koreans, the round-eye who could sing Arirang. That or a circus freak of sorts.

“Let’er rip and lets get moving, Elvis!” someone called out. I cleared my throat and belted out the first verse of the folk song, which was followed by a token golf clap and appreciative nods. I felt like Side Show Bob as I mounted our Range Rover. Off then, to rock down to Electric Avenue and shake the Korean countryside.

Our first order of business was some demolitions training. We had, among other sundries in our load of blow, quite a stack of block C-4 “plastic” explosive, a high-explosive charge that expanded at a rate of 23,000 feet per second, and was regarded as a primary steel cutting charge. We had no steel, but plenty of timber in the form of deadfall and standing trees.

Of course, we all wanted to wad it up into one big ball and recreate the Big Bang, but Buck wouldn’t have any of that; the Buck stopped here. “Just treat these timbers as if they were steel pipes and cut ‘em, guys. Come on, let’s see some diamond and half-diamond charges and other cutters.” We split into two-man teams and assessed our surroundings with the greatest of creativity in mind.

Our company commander, who was still back in Fort Lewis, Washington, was unaffectionately nicked “Squeakers,” a titled he had earned during his tenure as our company executive officer (XO) for his propensity to report our many minor transgressions to the then-incumbent company commander. “He’s a rat, boys. He’s a rat and he bears watching,” Chief Richard R., our team warrant officer, warned.

I chose a diamond steel cylinder-cutting charge, which I molded from C-4 and wrapped around a fallen log. As I crimped my blasting cap around the time fuse, I couldn’t help but notice that one of our engineers, Mikey G. had created what to all the world looked like a human figure molded of C-4, and was plastering it to a tree trunk. “Hey, Mike…what kind of charge is that?” I puzzled.

“It’s Squeakers,” he said, “and now I’m going to prime him,” he continued as he inserted the blasting cap into what was discernibly the rectum of the figure.

Ka-RACK! went the Michael G. Squeakers timber-cutting charge in a shower of splinters and dark, pungent smoke. “Clean cut!” Mikey bragged. “Hell, that’s the most work Squeakers has done all year!”

We progressed finally to the known distance (KD) automatic weapons fire range down the access road, and proceeded to riddle impromptu targets with our team’s M-249 Squad Automatic Weapons (SAWs). As bad luck would have it, we soon ignited brush downrange with the tracer rounds from the SAWs. “Just let it burn, guys!” Buck urged. We obliged.

Before long, though, we had a formidable conflagration chomping at the bit, fueled by dry tinder and deadfall. “Cease fire!” Buck eventually called out. “We need to get this under control so we can keep training.” We pounced on the fire with shovels and what little water we had. We fell back soon, opting to dig a fire break to the burn’s front, to snuff it when it arrived.

There was the distinct snap, pop, whizzzzz of tracer rounds igniting and crisscrossing to our front. We decided to distance ourselves and let the spreading fire burn to the break. The blaze broke as planned, and smoldered slowly in the opposite direction for a spell. “Well, we’re done here for the day; let’s load up and head back to the FOB.”

Back at tent metropolis, we click-clacked our way to dine at the Canvas Cabana. “I’ll have an 11-ounce prime rib with horseradish sauce, pan-seared potatoes, and a sprinkle of kosher sea salt,” I announced matter of factly. Dr. Suess, the cook, didn’t bat an eye; he imparted a load of Spam, instant mashed potatoes, and instant IDK WTF onto my plate. With the deadest of deadpan expressions, he replied, “11-ounce prime rib with horseradish sauce, pan-seared potatoes, and a sprinkle of kosher sea salt…next!” This wasn’t the cook’s first day at smart-aleck remarks. You had to have a sense of humor. GBs are good at that.

“Hey you guys, you might want to come out here and see this,” one of the boys suggested from outside the mess tent.

Outside the tent, he chin-pointed toward an orange glow emanating from the location of the ranges. “OK, George, Guy, and Ed come with me; we’re going to have to take care of that fire ASAP,” Buck directed. As we bumped along the range road, we heard an unwelcome sound coming from the general direction of the range—BOOM. We looked at each other but said nothing. As we feared, the fire had erupted from smoldering ash that we caused earlier.

Once at the range, we were not prepared for what we saw. Korean troops to the tune of nearly 100 men had already been directed to respond to the range fire. As we stepped out of the truck, we saw a wounded Korean soldier parallel to the ground, face down, being carried by no less than 10 other soldiers, five on either side, each with their own little pinch of the stricken troop’s uniform, and they were trying to run. It was an absolute melee.

“Looks like a 203 round (40mm high-explosive tube-launched grenade) cooked off in the fire and bit one of them,” Buck assessed.

Screaming Korean soldiers massed around us. “OK, let’s get back in the vehicle right now, guys.” We pushed our way back to our truck, vaulted ourselves in, and locked the doors. ROK troops swarmed our vehicle and it began to rock. “Fuck this!” Ed shouted from the driver’s seat. He put the truck in gear and we parted the yellow sea en route back to the feeble defense of tent city.

“You guys pack your stuff and get ready to leave,” the freshly informed FOB commander told us. He was arranging for a C-141 Starlifter to fly us back to the States. Overreaction is the first thing that came to my mind, but then I didn’t know the extent of the afflicted Korean soldier’s injuries. Well, this stinks, I mused…but if you wanna dance, ya gotta pay in the ROK.

The next time the 10,000 roosters cried out and the reek of the atmosphere began to set in, we were still in tent city, waking to the click-clack of the boots on planks. Standing outside our tent waiting for the rest of the team to get out so we could go to breakfast together, we noticed a Korean soldier standing just outside the door of the nearest barracks. His left arm was generously bandaged and propped in a sling. His face was pockmarked with fresh scabs, and his head and left eye were also bandaged.

Our junior engineer, Abraham B., laughed and waved to him, pantomiming a person swatting at the flames of a fire, then suddenly jumping into the air as from an explosion. The Korean cracked a big grin, nodding vigorously, and mimed his own version of the previous night’s event. We gave him a thunderous round of applause peppered with enthusiastic “HOOAHs.”

“What’s for breakfast this morning, George?” Buck drawled. “Ah, today, Buck, there are Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce, pan-fried hash-browned potatoes with capers and salsa, fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee ground personally by Señor Juan Valdez, and sherbet—flavor of your choice. Just tell Dr. Seuss I sent you.”

And that my friends, you cannot make up.

Geo sends

The time my Special Forces team accidentally burned down a Korean forest (Pt.1)

I was a grunt, a ground-pounder, a door-kicker, a knuckle-dragger, a dog face, and a devil dog. I’ve been dogged-out and dog-tired, I’ve rucked until my dogs were barkin’ while it rained cats and dogs. I’ve had a dog in the fight, lived a dog’s life, gone to the dogs, been in the doghouse, and doggone it I’ve seen the tail wag the dog. I’ve seen a barking dog bite, dogged-shut a submarine escape hatch, had a dog as a best friend, ‘cause every dog has its day. I’ve experienced the dog days of summer, listened to Three Dog Night, and I’ve seen a dog that won’t hunt in this dog-eat-dog world. You feel me, dog?

When I was a regular Army grunt, I was in a mechanized infantry unit. The only time I ever had to carry a rucksack of any appreciable weight was in some of the professional development courses I attended in hopes of catching a timely promotion. Still, occasionally I found myself at a grassroots level of basic Army life, living in tin huts in the Rocky Mountains and living out of a rucksack for days on end. For a young soldier of my intellect and experience, it was a praiseworthy undertaking, but I would not know what a truly heavy ruck or long march was until I transitioned to the ranks of the Green Berets.

U.S. Army Rangers are the daddies of heavy rucksacks; there is no disputing that. Having a former 2/75 Ranger as a team sergeant ensured that we Green Beanies would never wander too far away from appropriate respect for the very pinnacle of light infantry—Army Rangers.

Our team sergeant was not even an average Ranger, but rather a cut-above Ranger who had fallen on tough luck with physical injury during tryouts for Delta selection in West Virginia. Ironically, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Mark B.—who just went by “Buck”—was not even technically our team sergeant. Buck was just an SFC—team sergeants were master sergeants (MSG). We had MSGs on our team who came and went, but we always regarded Buck as our de facto senior sergeant. He was the voice of common sense and authority. Once the MSG of the team had finished spewing edicts, all eyes would shift to Buck for the earthly version of what had just been said. We ultimately would do what Buck told us to do.

Most of my time overseas in my years with the First Special Forces Group (Airborne) was spent in the cold-weather months in the Republic of Korea (ROK)—land of the little PX, land of rotting cabbage and burning tires in winter, land of Reebok tennis shoes and women with flat buttocks, land of endless rice fields and animal manure, land of one-eye buffalo and Kiamaster trucks. It was the land of Soju, Maekju, Bulgogi, Pibimpap, and the KATUSA.

The flights

Deployments to Korea were cheap. As long as we conducted a tactical airborne drop in-country, the Air Force would regard it as training for them and not charge the Army for the use of their aircraft. That meant a 16-hour non-stop flight with multiple in-flight refuels, and in-flight rigging for the jump. An hour or so prior to a tactical drop, an aircraft will drop to a very low altitude and fly a nap of earth (NOE) profile. That is, it will fly at a fixed low altitude above the contour of the ground in an attempt to avoid being ‘painted’ by enemy radar, so the aircraft is in a perpetual state of rising and falling.

Just prior to an in-flight parachute rigging under an NOE profile, paratroopers are required to consume monstrous amounts of Twinkies and vinegar. I’m just kidding, but for those of you who have never experienced the trauma of this event, let me paint the picture: Ambient temperature inside the aircraft climbs to around 98° F. No room to sit turns into no room to stand. Projectile vomiting seems to become some sort of morbid competition. No room to stand turns into no room to set down your barf bag.

Men stumble and stagger in place as parachutes and rucksacks are passed at treetop level over the stacks of (jump) sticks. No room to lay your barf bag down turns into no room to think or change your mind. The deck of the aircraft becomes moderately slick with the accumulation of sweat beads, spilled stomach linings, and water as men try to drink to stave off heat exhaustion. The temperature nudges up to around 105°. A slow death awaits the fool who suddenly realizes he has to pee. God spare the jumpmasters who have to inspect this load of paratroopers. Don’t bother declaring jump refusal; any of those would be sucked out of the belly of this beast when the green light illuminates.

Finally, you are doing that awkward quick-step waddle and falling head-first out the jump door. Once under canopy, the broad Nakdong Gang river becomes horrifyingly apparent. Water wing flotation devices were worn by us all due to the prominence of the expansive Nakdong Gang “water obstacle.” The distinct essence of an amalgam of feces and burning rubber wafts by. “My God, is that dinner cooking or a garage burning?” comes to mind. “Which rice paddy shall I land in?” comes as well.

We get a ride from this rice paddy to our forward operating base (FOB). At least it isn’t a forced ruck march with everything we own. FOBs were typically tent cities on the parade fields of Korean special forces (Tuk Su Bu Dae) compounds. The personnel activity associated with a tent city will immediately render the ground muddy. I don’t care if you are in the Gobi Desert, a tent city will produce a mud hole. The more affluent tent cities will have floors of wooden pallets in the tents, as well as along the walkways that connect the network of tents. It actually can become bearable in such a place.

On one rare occasion, the Korean special forces troops vacated their entire open-bay team room to allow us to stay indoors, while they subjected themselves to life in the tent city. That was a commander’s decision, not the enlisted men’s choice. As Green Berets, we understood the importance of establishing rapport. We would not be winning over any friends this way. We would have to affect the rapport thing some other way.

Playing catch with a football was one way. Have you ever seen a Korean person try to throw a football? It simply can’t be done. They would watch us, mesmerized as we sent the ol’ pigskin whizzing through the air, stable and spinning like a bullet. They tried and tried to throw it; we tried and tried to teach them. We would eventually use this technique to root out North Korean spies trying to infiltrate our lines: “OK, Mister…John Smith, is it? Take this football and hit me, I’m going long!”

The food of Korea

Our commander, being the skinflint that he was, recognized the frugality of these deployments, and furthermore the tranquility of sending us a few weeks early to Korea to live in tent cities and eat for free in the Korean military institutes of culinary grandeur. There was no cognitive separation between the three daily meals: It was rotten cabbage, rotten turnips, and rotten something else, washed down with “barley tea,” which was essentially tepid water with some dirt in it to give it that barley flavor.

“There sure isn’t an abundance of meat around here,” Buck observed one day.

“Yes, it will be great when HQ gets here and we can finally have MREs (military field rations),” another chimed in.

On one particular afternoon, walking back to the tent city from Bob’s Big Boy of Korea, our senior medic shouted to a couple of Korean soldiers cutting across the chow hall lawn, “Hey, stop walking across our dinner!” It paid to have a sense of humor. GBs are good at that.

The language of Korea

Green Berets are all required to be qualified in at least one foreign language by the Department of the Army’s Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. I was qualified in six, none of which were Korean. In fact, none of the men on my team spoke Korean. Riddle me that, Joker! Still, I scrambled to pick up as much as I could.

My senior communications sergeant, Guy L., and I decided to go for a run to the back gate of the compound and back one evening. As we approached the gate, the two Korean guards exited the guard shack and stood at port arms facing us. “Here goes…,” I prepped. “An yong ha, shimnika?” I politely greeted.

“How do you dooo?” a guard replied. As we turned away and continued on our path, Guy pondered out loud, “I wonder if we sound as retarded to them trying to speaking Korean as they do to us trying to speaking English. How do you do…who the fuck even says that anymore?”

Another quip before I curtail: I was entering the compound one night with a brother GB. As we approached the Korean guard post, I fished my ID card from my breast pocket, ready to present, wondering why my bud was not doing the same. Within easy earshot, my bud gestured a lazy salute and proudly announced, “Cheap thrill,” and continued walking without pause. The guards chin-dipped to bid us entry. Out of earshot, I asked him, “What the hell was that? What was that all about…cheap thrill?”

He replied, “Oh, they know me. Cheap thrill is my badge number.”

“How so? What is your badge number?”

“Seventeen,” he replied.

I mentally counted up from zero to 17 in my head in Korean, and 17 is pronounced, “Sheep chill.”

And this, my friends, you cannot make up!

Geo sends.